what?
Duncan himself was right behind me—striding through the doorway just seconds after I had. So when I stopped, spun around, and reversed direction—all in the span of one second—I ran smack into him.
Or maybe he ran into me.
Either way, we collided—hard—and I’m pretty sure I stabbed him in the gut with the pen I was carrying. I know for sure that my jaw slammed into something hard, most likely his collarbone—and as we reverberated back from the impact, Duncan dropped his laptop on the industrial-tile floor.
It hit with a clatter, and the whole room let out a collective “Oof!”
Then somebody shouted, “That’s gonna leave a mark!”
It all happened so fast that I forgot myself.
For a second, I forgot entirely where we were, and who we were, and all I thought about was that I had just stabbed somebody—and without thinking it through at all, I looked down, slid my hand inside his suit jacket and pressed it against his stomach, murmuring something like, “Oh, my God! Are you okay?”
The whole thing happened in seconds.
What was I even doing? Checking for bleeding? Making sure my pen wasn’t impaled in his abdomen? It wasn’t until my hand was already there, already pressed against him just above his belt, feeling his warm skin through the cool cotton of his shirt, that I felt the muscles in his stomach tense into some kind of six-pack situation as he recoiled from the unexpected touch.
The shock of what I’d done hit me at his reaction—I had just reached inside his suit jacket and pressed my hand to his stomach—and I snatched my hand back. But then, as I lifted my eyes toward his face, intending to say I was so sorry for all of it, I noticed something else: a dark red smear—oh, God, of lipstick—on his white shirt from the moment my mouth had just collided with it. And at the sight, still not thinking—my brain still several steps behind my actions—and maybe just wanting to make something right in this whole disastrous situation, I found myself reaching up to rub the stain, as if I could wipe it off with the pads of my fingers, even though that’s not how lipstick works.
That’s right. I followed my accidental pressing-my-hand-against-his-stomach with an only slightly less accidental rubbing-his-collarbone-with-the-pads-of-my-fingers.
Tallying it up, I’d say the moment totaled five very unfortunate seconds.
At last, I stepped back, my mouth open, my whole jaw still smarting like I’d been punched, and he looked down at the laptop’s carcass.
When he bent to pick it up, moving slowly, like there might still be some hope, it rattled.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, leaning closer to get a look at the damage.
He rose and stepped back, his eyes wide and astonished, blinking at me like I was some kind of she-devil. Like I might attack again.
And then time seemed to warp and slow down as I took in the sight of him for the first time since the grocery store, when I’d been too panicked to really take it in.
There he was.
After all these years.
Him, but not him.
Him, but altered. Bulked-up. Groomed. Short hair, coiffed up and back, almost like a cross between a buzz and a pompadour. Pressed and neat. Professional. Adult.
That was it: he looked like a grown-up.
And I’m not going to lie—it was definitely a new kind of sexy.
I’d been hoping that the sight of him might not do much to me—that after all this buildup and dread and worry and anticipation, that the actual moment when I saw him again might fizzle. That I’d see him again after all this time and think, “Oh. You. Whatever.”
But …
Nope.
The opposite. The most electric, physical, breathtaking opposite.
The fact of him—right there, so close—sent ripples of awareness buzzing and crackling through my body. It almost hurt a little. But in a good way.
Duncan Carpenter was six inches away from me.
Looking really, really good.
It was like he’d amplified all the most masculine parts of himself.
Even his jaw seemed squarer. How was that possible?
It was him, no question … but nothing like the goofy guy whose memory was stored away like a keepsake in my heart. It was him, but with a totally deadpan expression. It was him, but wearing—and I’m not joking here—a three-piece suit.
A gray three-piece suit.
With a navy blue tie.
Had I ever seen anyone, ever, in a three-piece suit? Did they even make them anymore? Wasn’t that only for dads in reruns of midcentury sitcoms? It would have been so bizarre for anybody my age